A few years ago, I blew my entire life up. I sold my house, moved my family across the country, and changed jobs all at once, trying to fix something that I couldn’t quite understand at the time.
In retrospect, a $7 pair of earplugs — and an understanding of traits-based lifestyle design — likely could’ve prevented it all.
I was living in New York, and my kids had just been diagnosed with ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. In that process, I was also diagnosed with ADHD, but they missed autism. I couldn’t understand why my life wasn’t getting better. I thought I finally had the answers, but nothing was changing for me. Every day, I commuted to the city, did my big job, came home, and crashed.
A $7 pair of earplugs likely could’ve prevented it all.
I’d get home and everything felt like nails on a chalkboard. I was irritated, tense, and on edge, and I couldn’t figure out why. So I’d have a glass of wine — or 2 — to calm my nerves and count down the hours until everyone went to bed and I’d finally get a moment of quiet.
Suddenly, I’d feel calm. I could actually rest. I’d turn on a TV show, read a book, or even reorganize the entire pantry. I stayed up all night, often until 2 A.M., because it was the first time all day that I would feel alive.
Eventually, it all came to be too much. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I had my ADHD diagnosis, but it didn’t seem to change anything. I was burnt out and exhausted. I quit my job, sold our house, and moved my family across the country to be closer to family for support, hoping to find answers as to why I was feeling this way, why despite having a diagnosis, I was still so overwhelmed.
It was after I moved, I sought help and came to understand the role autism played in unravelling my life. But I still didn’t understand what to do about it. I was determined to find out. I read and researched and dove into learning everything I could.
It was then I realized the location where I had been living was perfect. I was in the country in New York surrounded by nature — with stone walls, cardinals in the snow, plenty of outdoor quiet. And driving into the city 3 times a week for work — the energy, the restaurants, the people — was exciting.
Had I known how to design my life around my sound sensitivity, I could’ve avoided the chaos of uprooting my entire life.
However, the open-concept house we were living in was the culprit. There were no walls in all common areas and we had 2 children under the age of 6 and 2 dogs. The continuous echoes and sounds of it all were constant and unrelenting.
I am, at heart, a homebody, but the only time I was at peace was when it was finally quiet again.
Had I known how to design my life around my sound sensitivity, I could’ve avoided the chaos of uprooting my entire life. Instead of uprooting all of us, I just needed a $7 pair of earplugs.
Now, I know that the best house for me is a ranch-style instead of an open-concept. I know that whenever I need to decompress, I need a quiet space to escape to. This is why lifestyle design is so important, and why I am building Motley Bloom. To save ourselves from costly changes and to understand our traits and the environments that suit us.
